Search:brutal

In 2019, the power-acoustic musician Francisco Meirino presented A New Instability a commission for the venerable Ina-GRM in paris. Of course, this institution is the pre-eminent center for the research and study of electro-acoustic music dating back to founding of Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1958 by Pierre Schaeffer. To this day, Ina-GRM continues to be at the vangarde of the electro-acoustic composition, and it is quite an accomplishment and very appropriate for Meirino to receive such a commission.

This recording for A New Instability condenses the 32-channel original piece down to a still very active stereo version. here, Meirino continues to amplify and refine his compositions that walk a fine tightrope between raw expressivity of brutalist noise and conceptual rigor of more academic pursuits. Such a work ranks him in with the likes of Zbigniew Karkowski, Dave Phillips, Puce Mary, and Illusion Of Safety.

Field recordings from a kendo dojo in his hometown of Lausanne, Switzerland cast a pugilistic, combative arch to these recordings which snap, burst, explode, and erupt with utterances of men and women engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Searing frequencies build, swarm, and amass out of these episodes rise to psychologically tense crescendo that rupture at their heights, quickly turning attention towards a violence that originates from within. It is as if the objective observations of those martial arts recordings are sublimated within a subjective experience of psychic unease, disquiet, and imbalance.

A New Instability is another magnificent chapter in the ongoing body of work for this accomplished composer of electro-acoustic noise.

FULL OF HELL make their Relapse debut with their most explosive album to date, Weeping Choir. Dynamic, pissed, and wholly urgent, the highly-anticipated Weeping Choir is a definitive statement of intent by one of the underground’s most dynamic and virulent entities. FULL OF HELL have once again culled the extreme elements from hardcore, metal, and power electronics to redefine darkness and sheer brutality. Distorted guitars and ominous, disparate electronics grind and gnash against rapid-fire drumming as FULL OF HELL take themes of religion, loss, hatred, and set them ablaze. Recorded by the critically acclaimed Kurt Ballou at GodCity Studio, Weeping Choir sees FULL OF HELL fully unleashed. Abrasive, confrontational, none equal!

Patrick Conway is made of snips and snails and puppy tails. This is his second offering for the ESP Institute. On side A, Hypersocial removes our minds from the daily online cesspool and pulls up emotions we haven’t felt for almost a year. We lost a Summer of dancing together en masse in clubs, fields, warehouses and pubs, but with this beautiful reminder of what true social synergy and collective ecstasy can physically feel like, the Bristolian by way of Berlin hits the nail right on the head (with a little help from his friends Quantum Thomas & Hoyahelper). Lush strings? Tick. Balmy chord progression? Tick. Ethereal vocal chops? Walloping bassline? Infectious rhythm? Goosebumps? Tears of joy? Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick! On the flip-side, Safety Test is surely the tougher counterpart, the warm fuzzies are traded for a ten ton bag of grit. Here, Patrick foreshadows a sonic approach we’ll hear lot more of with his debut album early next year; a combination of abrasive rhythms, processed scraps, a grab bag of stabbing bleeps and bloops, distant car alarms, ballistic fax machines, and an arsenal of low frequencies so brutal your woofers will require jumper cables. So, a heroic slab for both a block party in your brain and sunset in your soul, these two songs will bring back the Summer you just lost.

Following 2019’s ‘INSHROUDSS EP’, ‘RESURRECTEDINBLACK’ marks the first Bestial Mouths LP crafted fully under frontwoman Lynette Cerezo’s guiding mind.

Emerging from the shrouds of trauma explored on her debut release as the singular force behind Bestial Mouths, RESURRECTEDINBLACK weaves a world riddled by grief and loss—a world of broken systems, of toxic lands once sacred, of lost saviors and inner voids that may be tented with strong flesh, but remain as raw as the meat surrounding them.

While branching deeper into the searing industrialized electronics and imminently danceable darkwave of the previous EP, RESURRECTEDINBLACK also continues to channel new and experimental paths through the project’s original gothic post-punk roots. Led by Cerezo’s visceral, emotional voice and lyrics, and featuring beautifully brutal production from Brant Showers (AAIMON/SØLVE), Alex DeGroot (Zola Jesus) and Balázs Képli (nullius in verba), it is the journey of a soul shattered—then stapled back together by female rage and self-determination.

light blue vinyl + purple vinyl

French ROD imprint returns with the second chapter of his "Rave Encounter" trilogy, featuring four original and exclusive bangers packed in another collectible 2x10''!

Frankfurt legend Marc Acardipane (The Mover - Planet Phuture) engages hostilities on a side with an hardcore ode to the label. Powerful breakbeat rhythms melt with hitting lines turn this "Rave Or Die" cut into a true underground and future classic anthem. Insane!

On the flip, German J. Lindenthal & R. Russino from Mental Fear Productions go dark with implacable "Constant Sorrow", a hypnotic yet doom-like song that fits pretty well to this odd period we are all living at the moment.

On the C-side, Scottish Dave Tarrida (boss of Sativae) signs his second contribution to ROD. Punishing "Rave Death Cult" skilfully combines bleepy tones to raging spirit for the greatest happiness of your neighbours!

Last but not the least, ROD mastermind Umwelt concludes the compilation in apotheosis with the rollin' "Chaos & Mayhem", a tense, brutal and oldschool masterpiece full of early 90's sounds.

If you enjoyed the first opus of "Rave Encounter", you'll 100% dig this brain-melting new release that goes further into murky industrial rave waters.

Nèg Ginen is a song composed by Jean Claude Dorvil on a traditional Nago rhythm (from Benin). Nèg in Haitian creole means “the dude“, “the guy“. It is about pride of being Haitians with solid African roots. As a matter of fact, when we mention Ginen, we talk about Africa. Like the majority of Chouk Bwa’s songs, this one is full of references mentioning Haitian voodoo rituals and spiritual /igures. For instance, Simbi Ganga is a lwa (voodoo spirit) from the Lakou Soukri Danach (voodoo temple) that lives in the water. Wild and brutal when he is chained up, he faithfully represents the Iwa Kongos, notorious for being real party-starters! Kebyesou is an Iwa who lives in the Lakou Souvnans (another temple). He is a royal /igure, like the Dahomey Iwas in general. The voodoo families are, so to speak, all present in this project!

Biography
After a /irst European performance in 2015 at Roskilde Festival leading to many other performances all around Europe, including WOMEX and WOMAD, Haitian traditionnal vodou band Chouk Bwa met the Brussels based duo The Ångströmers in 2016. Their new project combines a renewed dub sensitivity and Haitian rhythm science and spirituality. The ensemble has performed in Haiti and in European festivals including Trans Musicales de Rennes before releasing their /irst album Vodou Alé via Bongo Joe in 2020.
Modular synths and other vintage electronic instruments bring another dimension to Chouk Bwa’s music, although obviously it is always the band’s groove and /luent tempo that leads the energy of the ensemble: no laptops, no drum machines. There are certain freedoms that cannot be coerced. Even more, the electronic instruments are wired directly to the drums that feed them with impacts and caresses. All the Vodou families are there with their many rhythms and songs. Radical Vodou roots for urban audiences.

Remixes from Aube-Joie 01 . Pressed 100 copies with printed sleeve.

Ep starts with a Doom-like tune turning psychede
Second remix from gruiiik brings a breakcore amen-breakless banger. Brutalistic !
The flip opens with a OlgaZzz superb hardcore remix. Minimal and progressive... twisting and pityless !!! Brillant ! My fave on this EP.
14Anger finishes the job with a loud indutrial techno remix !! Hell time !

Tramp Records continues their pilgrimage to the soulful fringes of spiritual jazz and progressive rock and funk with their 3rd and 4th volumes of their "Peace Chant, Raw, Deep and Spiritual Jazz" series, and the world could not be more ready.

As we turn together on this tiny blue ball hanging lonely in space, and as we together face existential threats ranging from climate catastrophe, the rise of brutal authoritarian regimes, the breaking of the industrial storm and the imminent collapse of empire, not to mention the raging covid-19 crisis and the continuing racial and social struggles across the globe, we are thrust into a society-wide grand awakening that has been in the making for a very long time. Of course, our musical teachers have trod this path before us, and have worked out solutions to these problems, the songs of the Peace Chant series ring out loud and clear as our ancestors' proof of concept. They say history repeats herself, maybe it's because we weren't listening the first time. Thanks to Tramp Records, we have been granted another opportunity.

Today, the musical and spiritual truths enshrined within the spiritual jazz diaspora seem to be more and more sought-after, and crucial at a time when we as a society seek higher and farther for those bold truths. With each generation, that truth doesn't change, and the artists featured in the series speak those truths along a continuum that ranges from the late-60s up to the present day.

Volume 4, the second LP opens with a gorgeous and lush Wurlitzer-oriented big band piece that among its many treasures also features the 17-year-old visionary-saxophonist-to-be, Steve Coleman in his alleged first recording! The contributions of Brother Yusuf Salim and Bus Brown, figures who should be very familiar to Tramp Records aficionados, are consecrated here with a live recording of Freedom from one of Brother Yu's last public performances. One of the two European contributions to the comp, Attitude, by Organic Pulse 'onesemble', reads like a double entendre, the word "attitude" meaning simultaneously one's disposition or state of mind, and also one's orientation relative to the horizon. The Peace Chant series continues to touch all the sacred meridians: more devotional music with James Scales & All Stars' Ser-Vi-Tude, trance music of non-dominant traditions with Donn Preston Group's Ghana-Cha!, a modal and blue organ trio offering from Tommy Jones, and closing with a rich and righteous ballad, Quernemoen, from the Wayne Powell Octet.

Peace Chant is the center of the mandala, representing the nucleus of the post-bop, modal jazz, avant-garde, transcendental, spiritual, ethnic, and freedom music universe without necessarily suggesting anything immediately identifiable as any of the above. This is the soundtrack to the raising of human consciousness and the salvation of society's very soul.

We give thanks to Tramp Records for leading our thirsty hearts to this rich fountain.

B•O•M is the fifth album by freak electronic producer NCHX (NOCHEXXX). A percussive planet of acid-techno, UK bass, house and electro-phonk, hosed down with a chemical wash of post-dubstep and UK bleep contaminants.

Departing with a tube station screech, HUNTING HIDES signals a lone defender’s ride through the underground - trace amounts of musique concrete dart around the tunnel walls, while sub-low cushions the rumble. ENTERCOL is perfect 3am mix fodder; saturation hot-points push beneath a middle eastern theme, whilst SEVENTH GUN TERRITORY is pure rapid-fire bongo bizness - a concrete terrain punctuated with corrugated metal grids and moving shadows: distorted poly-metered brutalism! CYBERTUSH is the perfect OST to a club littered with vape pens, while B-Boi bots flirt with promiscuous A.I.

Arguably the most fierce cut is TEFLONTUAN - an ode to NCHX’s favourite pro Antuan Dixon - the Deathwish skater lands bolts with the illest of steeze. Side-chained 303 squelch rattles alongside x0x sequenced drums as wavetable pads float above kinked rails. A nights gallop over city curbs. The LP signs off with LOCATION SCOUT, a SpaceX sample-return mission heading back to earth with a fistful of deep house red planet crumble.

“A dance floor’s dream and a mixing engineer’s nightmare” - Resident Advisor

“Don´t go out there, you might get shot” was the warning from Donna Maya relatives when she visited Detroit two years ago. That makes her even more curious to explore the city. Disturbed by, as well as fascinated from the dystopian state of Detroit she recorded many places that made (industrial) history, including the Ford factory, the world’s tallest, now abandoned central station and the once magnificent Michigan Theater, that was brutally converted into a parking garage. Donna Maya transformed the sound recordings into artificial sound sculptures combined with electronic beats. Every track is dedicated to one of those places and makes it musically alive. With her theremin Donna Maya guides the listener deeply inside. The result of Donna Mayas 6 weeksstay in Detroit is her album “Lost Spaces -> Detroit". “Lost Spaces ? Detroit” is about how to handle crises, how individuals get along with it and the relationship of society to its culture. Donna Maya understands Detroit as a perfect example for what capitalism does when people give up cultural values. With “Lost Spaces ? Detroit” Donna Maya draws a musical picture of how she experienced Detroit that shows that not only a city got lost, but a living space for everyone: Pure urban experimental electronics with theremin.

Lina & Gwen Wayne have become notorious for their techno sets throughout Germany and Europe, maneuvering from insider to headliner depending on the premises. We are pleased to announce their first EP "Genug gelabert" will be released on 4th September 2020 via Hold Your Ground on 12" vinyl and digitally.

Worm & brutal, like falling face first onto the concrete floor on a warm summer night, is the first track "Palaber" by Lina & Gwen Wayne. For six minutes, the ground feels like the sky, lying feels like falling, dancing feels like breathing and beyond your immediate surrounding there is nothing. This is techno and for the moment these two producers from Hamburg and Berlin are your new horizon.

The two DJs started producing together in late 2019, with their no frills & dark, but fun style translating effortlessly into their own productions. "Genug gelabert" ist the title of their first EP, meaning Enough said, and we are gonna keep it at that. Come marvel at the beautiful brutalism. Incl. Remixes by Moog Conspiracy and Innacircle & Metatext.

Vital Sales Points:
DJ promo by Cutthenoize, German print & online by Audiolith Inhouse, UK/international online

Marlowe is a collaborative alt-rap project from North Carolina-based hip-hop producer L'Orange and rapper Solemn Brigham. Their unique blend of quick-fire vocals and dusty breakbeats is most well-known on tracks such as "Lost Arts" and "Tales From The East." The project came together in 2018 with the intent of marrying Brigham's lyrics concerning social commentary, police brutality, and poverty with L'Orange's thudding beats and crackling vinyl samples to achieve a new, refreshing take on hip-hop in modern times. Marlowe 2 seeks to continue that legacy.

New album of one of the biggest Reggae/Dub french soundsystem starring MacGyver, Rooty Step & Pupajim (who worked with Alpha Steppa, Biga Ranx, High Tone, Mungo's Hi-Fi ...).

Available as super limited edition including 60x60cm Poster !

Since their inception at start of the 2000s, Stand High Patrol have rocked sound systems to their own riddim, assimilating and re-purposing the codes of the genre in their own unique style. From tiny bars in Brittany to huge festival stages, on independent radio or across national airwaves, the crew have quietly trod their own path, never compromising their core value of independence. Connoisseurs have long recognised Stand High’s credentials both as a dub group and a leading sound system, but they stand out from the crowd because of their ability to deliver the unexpected, whether live or on record. Their ability to draw such a diverse audience is testament to this atypical approach to making music.

In 2020, almost 20 years since their humble beginnings, the collective presents their fifth album, “Our Own Way”. As with their first two albums “Midnight Walkers” and “Matter Of Scale”, now considered as classics in their genre, this new opus asserts itself as the latest representation of the crew’s versatile approach to crafting sound. Their music, a blend of its own known as “Dubadub”, has always borrowed influences from multiple sources, and over the course of their career their roots in dub and reggae have intertwined with hip-hop, jazz, new wave, trip-hop and numerous other genres. The ‘Dubadub Musketeers’ have never ceased experimenting, forever seeking to increase the sonic territory they cover, day after day. Both live and recorded, they’ve made it a point of honour to never offer up the same thing twice. Any resemblance that “Our Own Way” might bear to those first two albums is a consequence of this obvious creative continuity, rather than of going “back to basics”.

In contrast to the last two Stand High Patrol records, the hip-hop inspired “The Shift”, or the Bristol indebted “Summer On Mars”, “Our Own Way” doesn’t have a unifying concept or theme. Rather than being limited to a single aesthetic, the LP pays respect to the entire canon of Jamaican music, all unified under Stand High’s inimitable production values. With the wealth of experience gained during the recording of their last two records, the collective decided to aim for a freer project, letting themselves be guided by their own music and their own instincts. The end result is a musical portrait of what Stand High Patrol is in the present moment.

The tracks that make up the new LP burst out of the studio, each born out of unbridled, impulsive creativity. Previously unheard compositions and specially re-tooled dub plates have been assembled into a tracklist that shifts and moves like a classic Dubadub Musketeer live set. Each step of the process has been refined by years of practice : composition, effects, and the final mix. Throughout “On Our Way”, the brutal dub stepper, though still a favourite for sound system sessions, is noticeable by its absence. Instead, it’s the full weight of the crew’s reggae heritage that’s expressed in the mix. It's not just the depth and weight of each tune that strikes the listener, but also the spaces heard between the notes that grab and hold their attention.. The sense of a trip, whether musical, internal or geographic, is omnipresent throughout the LP, linking each track to those before and after. “Our Own Way” finds Stand High Patrol exploring as usual, yet also narrating their journey as they’ve rarely done before

Conrad Van Orton and Jheal sign the third release for Eyes Have It, 30D sub-label that, as usual, explores the darkest, coldest and even suffocating side of the techno spectrum.

As it happened in the second release (‘Sei Tracce In Nero EP’ by Reeko & Group), the high contrast between both sides gives sense to the album, giving it a strange but perfect balance, this time quite more oriented to the dance floor. It’s for sure that some people will think that CVO and Jheal might use elements that at first sight might be familiar but, let’s be honest, both have the ability to make everything sound very original.

On the A side Conrad Van Orton, an Italian producer with a lot of experience in techno and the most experimental electronics, elevates the listening to a sonic musical experience, literally. The three tracks, although ‘Dysfunctional Organic Device’ is probably the best example, are pure techno brutality, as highly raw, energetic and obsessive as they are obviously functional. Three true ‘monsters’.

On the B side Jheal, a face already known to the label thanks to his brilliant participation in ‘Close Encounters 002’, brings melancholy (‘150 Wreaths’) and tons of introspection (‘Our Fathers’) to the record. It is not easy for industrial techno to sound as emotional as when Alejandro manipulates it, something especially remarkable for such a young producer. Congratulations.

'Prole Art Threat' is producer Anthoney Hart's second LP for Planet Mu under his East Man alias, after 2018's well received debut 'Red White & Zero'. It brings together a set of MCs from all over London, Darkos and Eklipse from East London and Lyrical Strally from near Feltham who were on the first album, Ny Ny and Mic Ty also from East London, Streema and 'Vision Crew' member Whack Eye from Lewisham plus Fernando Kep, an MC from the burgeoning Brazil grime scene. They work across a cohesive set of tight riddims forged from thoughtful amalgams of grime, dancehall and drum & bass. The album takes its name from a Fall song/mission statement of the same title, the band being self-consciously working class and led by a brilliant autodidact in Mark E Smith. East Man relates that the title is to be taken as “a reflection of working-class creativity and how the establishment marginalise us and (perhaps on a subconscious level) see us as a threat.” Les Back, author of 'The Art of Listening' and 'Out of Whiteness: Color, Politics and Culture (with Vron Ware)' contributes liner notes to the record: East Man understands the force and the democracy of the mic. Listening to Prole Art Threat is like being at a dance. As the mic is passed between each of the MCs, a different tale is ‘elevated... off the map’ as Ny Ny puts it. We hear instalmentsfrom Forest Gate, Lee, Lewisham and Manor Park as these ‘lyrical gaffers’ and ’top boys and girls’ tell tough stories of life under the scrutiny of the ‘Feds’ in a brutal and divided city. The bars and rhymes document what it means to live here; from the double standards applied to the sexuality of young girls and boys to the corrosive violence of everyday life. All this is dissected without compromise. This is not just aLondon story though, the inclusion of Fernando Kep from the burgeoning Grime scene in Brazil is evidence of the outernational reach of the music. The tracks on East Man’s album explode the wilful ignorance of those who see ‘the working class’ in contemporary London as code for whiteness. This is the sound of a proletarian urban multiculture, made from Caribbean and African influences, sound system culture, pirate radio and the inexorable rhythms of Grime, Drum & Bass, Techno and Dancehall. It is the stirring of the "white" & "black" working classes who are living together and coming together on their own terms in sound. ‘Making music because you love it... what the fuck else could you do?’ as East Man says. The tracks and voices you are holding in your hands are, as a result urgent, vital, as hard nails and twice as sharp.

Rival Consoles is 21-year old IDM-smith Ryan Lee West from Leicester in the Midlands of England. After having supported his city neighbours and label comrades Kyte on an extensive European tour in November 2008, West locked himself away all winter to finish his first full-length album, set to see the light of day in mid 2009. In the meantime fans of his debut 'The Decadent EP' will be pleased to hear that on February 23, 2009 Erased Tapes Records will release an exclusive 4-track 7" single / download bundle ? Rival Consoles' take on classical music entitled 'Helvetica'. Instead of X-Box versus Playstation, here West plays classical against dance music! Influenced by impressionists like Claude Debussy and modern electronic artists such as Autechre and Daft Punk, Ryan Lee West created a unique signature sound for Rival Consoles. A playful and brutal mix of electronic beats, emotive piano melodies and warm synth string arrangements. Ryan repeatedly performed at the Tate Britain Museum in London where he drew over 2000 visitors into his unpredictable, yet detailed sound drawings. He was the first to represent Erased Tapes Records at the British Music Week 2007 in Cologne, Germany. Limited to 500 copies only: with download code. Album due later in the year, and it will be one of the years hittest tips...

RIVAL CONSOLES IS 21-YEAR OLD ELECTRO ACID-SMITH RYAN LEE WEST FROM LEICESTER. INFLUENCED BY IMPRESSIONISTS LIKE CLAUDE DEBUSSY AND MODERN ELECTRONIC ARTISTS SUCH AS AUTECHRE AND SQUAREPUSHER, HE CREATED HIS UNIQUE SIGNATURE. A PLAYFUL AND BRUTAL MIX OF IDM ACID BEATS AND WARM, EMOTIVE SYNTH STRING ARRANGEMENTS. IN FEBRUARY HE RELEASED AND TOURED THE MORE QUIRKY "VEMEER EP" UNDER HIS SECOND MUSICAL ALIAS APARATEC, WHICH SOLD LIKE HOT CAKES AND EARNED HIM A LOT OF FANS. RYAN RECENTLY REPRESENTED ERASED TAPES RECORDS AT THE BRITISH MUSIC WEEK 2007 IN COLOGNE, GERMANY AND CRAFTED REMIXES FOR UPCOMING LABEL COMRADE AND PRODUCER JUSTIN LOCKEY (YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO). "THE DECADENT EP" WILL HIT THE UK SHOPS AS A FUSION OF TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY FORMATS - A 10" VINYL RECORD WITH A DOWNLOAD CODE, THAT ALLOWS THE PURCHASER TO BE ABLE TO GET THE ENTIRE EP PLUS BONUS TRACK DIGITALLY FOR NO EXTRA COST.

The latest project by belgo-moroccan producer Reda Senhaji, alias Cheb Runner, focuses on breeding a new style of music between electronics and Gnawa. Taking inspiration from New Beat to Techno, Acid House and Gabber, the grooves are relentless, stiff and club oriented, relying heavily on analog synths and drum-machines. The sound is darker, more experimental and mature than his previous Gan Gah project.

Cheb Runner digs into the acoustic sounds of his youth, for an organic feeling of warmth and celebration. The syncopation of the classic Gnawa percussions, the “Tagnawit”, its groove is undeniable. Featuring two traditional Gnawa singers based in Brussels, Mâalem Driss and Mâalem Hicham, the EP is a reunion for the belgian Gnawa scene, keeping the vibe alive.

In a world of dematerialized culture, we tend to forget where we come from : by putting Gnawa music at the center of his production, Cheb Runner creates a bridge with the past. The young producer is a son of Gnawa himself, this is the music he grew up with and played as a kid.
Now he brings it to the club scene; Cheb Runner’s first EP is experimental, brutal, innovative. Getting past definitions and genres, it opens new horizons for North-African producers, showing them how to use their roots to make new beats. It encourages both tradition and modernity in Music. In 2019, Gnawa music, dance and culture was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural
Heritage list, demonstrating both the relevance of the genre and the necessity to preserve it.
of the genre and the necessity to preserve it.

Cheb, the Arabic word for “young boy”, is traditionally used to describe the young generation of Raï singers – like Cheb Hasni, Cheb Mami or Cheb Khaled. It means the new generation is here, to create something new with something old. The reference to the Ridley Scott movie Blade Runner is just that: while the Cheb comes from the bled, a moroccan village in the Agadir region, the beats come from the club scene of an industrial city, like Berlin, Detroit or Molenbeek/Brussels.

Cheb Runner takes you on a trip through space and time, as well as to pass on ancient rhythms to inspire the next generations.

The eight damaging new movements on XIBALBA’s Años En Infierno culminate into the band’s most brutalizing material to date, with more death metal energy than ever fueling the album, with their trademarks breakdown savagery fully on display in every track.


The LP was produced by Arthur Rizk (Cro-Mags Power Trip, Inquisition) and completed with artwork by longtime collaborator Dan Seagrave (Dismember, Entombed, Suffocation).

For the past thirteen years, Xibalba has been dedicated to carving a sound which combines unadulterated aggression booming out of the vocals, an ultra-heavy low-end frequency, colossal death metal riffs, brutal hardcore breakdowns, and a trademark groove now synonymous with the group.

Showing no mercy and keeping their cultural message intact with their fourth full-length, Años En Infierno takes these conventions and finds a new way of expression that the band defines as, “more harsh, brutal, and creative in a metaphorical sense.''

BERZERKER LEGION was founded in 2016 by guitarists Tomas Elofsson (Hypocrisy) and Alwin Zuur (Asphyx) with a vision to create death metal of the most belligerent quality, they recruited a line-up of solid well-known musicians consisting of James Stewart (Vader) on drums, Jonny Pettersson (Wombbath) on vocals and Fredrik Isaksson (Dark Funeral) on bass to complete the Legion. Alwin Zuur (guitars/songwriter) comments: « During the recent years Tomas and I met each other at shows and festivals regularly. Much of our conversations were about music and styles. During these meetings we found out that we really had a lot of common musical interests . Music wise ‘Obliterate the Weak’ displays the perfect balance between brutality, melody and harmony. Being a fan of the early 90’s Swedish Gothenburg style, with bands like At The Gates, Eucharist, a Canorous Quintet, as well as being a die-hard fan of brutal old school death metal style with bands like Bolt Thrower, Obituary, I have always wanted to write songs showing a mix of such different death metal genres. The great musical cooperation between Tomas and me has made ‘Obliterate The Weak’ a variously solid diverse album where you can expect 11 songs of violent pounding riffing in a massive wall of sound mixed with immense melodies and thrilling harmonies.» Vocalist Jonny Pettersson explains the lyrical theme of ‘Obliterate the Weak’: « The lyrical concept is based around how religion is poisoning the world, and even after so many years of evolution, development , we still have huge parts of the world that believes in a fairytale, people who believe that this fairytale is worth going to war over, worth killing for and uses as an excuse for truly malevolent acts. These are weak minded sheep that will do anything in the name of whatever god they believe in. 'Obliterate the Weak' draws from the will to eradicate all forms of religion and tells a story of atrocities made in the name of a fiction. » Saying the album songs transpire massively produced invigorating heavy death metal is an understatement. BERZERKER LEGION knock out with warlike triumphant, powerfully addictive harmonies that will turn them into an unstoppable beast in a live situation and on record.

12''+MP3+Art Print

Allan Shotters zweite EP auf 2DIY4 erzählt eine sehr persönliche Geschichte auf eine quälende Frage, auf ein erschütterndes Gefühl, das ihn nach dem Verlust seiner Mutter plagte. In diesen tragischen Monaten war das Produzieren von Musik sein Zufluchtsort, um mit den vielfältigen Emotionen klarzukommen. Die Diversität an Gefühlen hört man auf "Das Gift" heraus. Überwältigt sein. Sich kraftlos fühlen. In Verunsicherung ertrinken. Wut. Traurigkeit. Warten zu müssen. Hoffnung. Hoffnungslosigkeit. Vier Tracks von brutaler Ehrlichkeit. "Wofür würdest du sterben?" "Für die Chance zurückzugehen."

2x12"

Having made initial waves on Cold Recordings and Osiris, Eric Baldwin returns now to Tectonic to release his eponymous album ’Cocktail Party Effect’, bringing his South London roots to Berlin for an all-weekender, under strobe lights.

Drawn by his appetite for powerful rhythmical forms and inspired by the likes of Daphne Oram, The Residents and Captain Beefheart - Eric takes uses background in sound design, knowledge of hacking VST software and adapted spring reverbs and other hardware, to create a truly unique vision of contemporary electronic music. It sits somewhere between Jeff Mills, Aphex Twin & Squarepusher - held together by a connective UK Bass Music spinal chord. A weird but intriguing beast.

We open the track with Japanese cocktail recipes, before moving into the only vocal track of the album, ‘Talking To Bricks’ featuring Bristol vocalist Redders on fine form - charged with disjointed energy and run ragged across a technologically charged dancehall style beat. The LP progresses through the rolling breaks and bleeps of ‘For The Memory Exchange’, into an IDM side-step in the shape of ‘Brutalism’, moving into the gentle, beautiful flickering glitches of ‘PDA’, before we get to the hyperactive twitching alien charge of ‘War On Codex’.

Taking a leap in another direction, we reach ‘Cause For Bad Shelving’, which sounds a bit like Squarepusher when he was on late 90s, immaculate form - taking the tempo up a few notches, while building melancholy. ‘Lack Of Wrong Format’ then gives us a moment to breathe, before diving into ‘Deerhorn’ which brings us right back to the dancefloor. Things are then turned inside out with the jittery wonder of ‘I Get It (Lost Banknote)’, redirected via the industrial clangs of ‘Low_Rise’, before rounding off our sonic adventure with the ponderous tones of ‘Loner’ - which leave you glowing and drifting off into space.

A bold album that’s just brim with a strong sense of originality, direction and grand narrative. From international dancefloors to post-clubbing ear-worms, Cocktail Party Effect is just getting started and you’ll be hearing his name more and more now.

These two songs by Leontine Dupree have amazed us for a very long time. We are extremely happy to present you a superfunky 2-sider. "Standing On His Word" is funky-soul at its best. On the flip you find "Waiting For My Baby", a brutal, uptempo sister funk cut.

Purple Vinyl

HAKAI is the new project from Joey Blush (BLUSH_RESPONSE) and Jagoda Nagel. Inspired by their mutual love for Japanese culture and aesthetics, Hakai’s first 12″ is a brutal and noisy debut for Blush’s new label MEGASTRUCTURE_. The HAKAI sound is one born of destruction. The A side of the EP opens with the 100 bpm pounder Anxiety, driving the beats further and faster at 140 bpm with Ningen. The intensity continues on the B side, with Invading Executioner bringing a dreamlike edge to the industrial beats, only to awake in the alien dimension of the final track, Bury Me Alive. Bury Me Alive is an emotional ballad inspired by loss and the futility of life itself. How do we let go when there is so much left we couldn’t do? MEGASTRUCTURE_ is BLUSH_RESPONSE’s new label. A home for sounds on the fringes of reality, MEGASTRUCTURE will act as a haven for those attracted to unusual sounds.

Kicking off 2020 – Great Circles takes a step away from the dance floor with the release of the monolithic new work from Philadelphia-based artist Radere, ‘I Do Not Want What I Have.’ This long-in-gestation set of slow burning electronics and shadowy drones is part of the label’s growing selection of releases dedicated to deep listening, following on from the 2017 Prefix Moniker LP.

Radere is the ongoing project of Carl Ritger, who has worked under the nom de plume since 2009 and has deep ties to the Great Circles family. He played some of his earliest shows at Inciting HQ, the recently shuttered, label-affiliated venue, and invited Justin Gibbon AKA Westov Temple and Great Circles label founder to contribute to some of his earlier recordings. While he started out as a more straightforward ambient guitarist, Ritger’s work developed into more experimental textures as he explored modular synthesis and processed found sounds.

Ritger’s releases from his time spent living in Denver, CO c. 2011-2018 are marked by a particular strain of east coast nihilism and an angular aesthetic that keeps the listener off balance. Now back in his native Philadelphia, the two long-form pieces that comprise ‘I Do Not Want What I Have’ represent a perhaps more nuanced meditation on pain and loss. “Spitty Kisses,” the 15-minute album opener, takes aim at the listener with a brutal salvo. It is almost sadistic in its sonic intentions – acerbic modular sound and abrupt stuttering in the material leave a listener personally affected. “You’ve Been A Ghost Your Whole Life,” on the flip, delivers a salve for the A-side’s wounds and resolves its masochistic tones.

Written through a period of intense personal trauma as a means to seek comfort and solace through creative action, it’s clear that the puerile humor of nihilism is gone and grown out of in Ritger’s work.

FFO: taking long walks off of short piers, the legend of the monk Kelpius living among the trees of the Wissahickon, traditional creation and destruction stories in polytheistic faiths, and John Coltrane.

The record is accompanied by a digital-only series of remixes by friends of the artist and regular collaborators, including new works from Borne and Shivers, as well as Great Circles alums Westov Temple, Chaperone, and WOLF DEM.

Max Graef and Julius Conrad are Ratgrave. ‘Rock’ is their
second album - ongoing transmissions of Electronic PFusion from Earth. It follows a stellar debut on Funkineven’s imprint Apron. The duo’s sound palette draws inspiration from 80's funk, soul, rock and electronic but through a contemporary lens from two versatile multiinstrumentalists.

 In their own words: “Rock is the essence of energy and
vibration we felt in different styles of music, almost like a
parallel component connecting all things we like. In the
process of recording the new album we kept coming back
to this essence no matter what style the original idea was.
There was the raw and brutal energy of Jazz-Rock, a lot of
video game influences that somehow adhered this essence
just as well as quieter Pop and Psychedelic passages that
we recorded. Among other things we absorbed a lot of
heavy music during the time of the recording like Blue
Cheer, Black Sabbath, Frank Zappa or Jimi Hendrix and
realized while writing our own music how much impact
they had even on quieter songs. This is why ‘Rock’ felt like
the perfect title although the music ranges from P-Funk
and Spiritual Jazz to various styles of Pop and beyond.”

 Max Graef has previously collaborated with Glenn Astro on
records for Ninja Tune and both artists have previously
released on Tartelet.

 This marks the fourth official album on Black Focus, a
London label founded by Kamaal Williams.

 4pp digipack. 180g vinyl LP in reverse board printed sleeve
with 3mm spine and digital download card.

white vinyl

Desroi cuts his unrivaled skill to combine power and pace into four new tracks again. "Vermillion Border" draws from a dazed palette of concise and forceful sounds and thus raises the bar on his lasting run of EPs.

Tightly oscillating and resoundingly austere, the EP has its moments of stormy brutality that punctuates the mesmeric synth cycles to inspiriting elation. "Bright Blood" and "Gauze Covers Flaw" appear tethered at the base by cavernous low end and heady drum machine programming which drives the work.

Closing track "Empty Eye" might present Desroi's most funky work to date, rounding the EP off with a single warping synth motif shifting through sonic spheres.

Ferrum is a large-scale exploration of inharmonic timbres, oscillating between brutal grinding textures and intricate percussive singularities, created by digitally transforming recordings of various metallic objects.

Susanne Kirchmayr's new album takes a close personal look at the spectral richness of iron and other metals, in various shapes and sizes, recorded, processed and arranged to a carefully curated selection of musical miniatures. Some of the results are an obvious nod to her Electric Indigo DJ alias, music that could be played on the dance floor of an alien cargo ship, both highly familiar and foreign at the same time. Others offer almost steady-state like meditative qualities, vibrations from deep within, on a sub atomic level, full of light and motion on the tiniest possible scale. The limitation in material opens up a seemingly unlimited world of colours and rhythms, oscillating, resonating and highly immersive.

Now available in February with a big price reduction. Split Coloured Vinyl (Clear & “Schoolly D Yellow”). Olly was a musician, drum-programming wizard and force of nature, and he would go on to shock the world with his in-your-face approach to making music – as bombastic lyrically as he was musically. He simply gave no f*cks, and listeners were drawn into his street-influenced vortex of “b-boy rhyme and riddle.” As noted in the liner notes to this special release:
“The demand for “P.S.K.” was so large that nationwide bootlegging was a major distribution avenue, albeit an unpaid one. ‘Those bootleggers made me big because, when it came down to it, I didn’t have the money to get the records out there,’ Schoolly says.

‘The person who helped me figure that sh*t out was Luke Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew and Luke Skyywalker Records. He took me all over Miami and showed me all the different bootlegged versions of my own records. It was crazy.’” On the flipside of “P.S.K.,” Schoolly gave the world another classic: “Gucci Time.” Flexing brutal brag muscles, it was another gangsta masterpiece, furthering his legend and bringing even more 909 boom to the still expanding rap world. The opening lines are still quoted by scholars of the game today: “Lookin’ at my Gucci/It’s about that time.”

Get On Down presents this classic for the first time in deluxe form, which is also fully Schoolly-approved: a custom 12-inch sleeve adorned with Schoolly-D’s famed artwork; unique split clear & yellow vinyl; a liner notes insert featuring Schoolly’s own look back on the year 1985 as told to author Brian Coleman; and a unique sticker sheet with 8 images taken from the artwork on this 12-inch cover (which was first seen on his early 12-inches, as well as his 1985 Schoolly-D EP and 1986’s Saturday Night: The Album).

”Are you ready to take your turn now?” asks a mischievous voice at the beginning of DJ Marcelle’s new album. But by this point you don’t have a choice: you better buckle up for a joyride through the wild, unpredictable imagination of a true electronic music auteur. ‘Saturate The Market, Now!’ is stuffed with the kind of raw, rhythmic workouts and playful humour we’ve come to know and love from the long-serving Dutch artist. Let’s start with the music: Marcelle pinballs between pumping outsider house, brilliantly weird acid and musique concrète experiments where anything could happen at any given time. Then there are her famous track titles, which take another aim at nightclub patriarchy (‘Technicians And Their Light Effects’, the successor to last year's 'Technicians And Their Smoke Machines') at the same time as displaying a keen sense of satire (‘I Fell In My Own Cesspit!’) and revealing a difficult relationship with the sour, massive rock that for her is ‘German Bread’. With artwork featuring a collage of puppets found in her Amsterdam house and Marcelle’s own on-the-road photography, this is yet another album that sets her a mile apart from the paint-by-numbers dance music producers - or “accountants” as she’s witheringly described them.

Marcelle arrived via punk, post-punk, avant garde and dub and lives by the independent, forward-thinking spirit inherent in those scenes. A sense of freedom is imbued in her work, unsurprising given that this album was written in two weeks and was made entirely on her own collection of machines (save a few choice vocal samples). It’s Marcelle’s eighth vinyl-only release for Jahmoni Music from Munich and follows on from last year’s ‘One Place For The First Time’ which swiftly sold-out and is now onto a repress. The vinyl is released alongside a 10” featuring extended and dub versions of triumphant album-cut ‘Everything Not Yet’.

So are you sitting comfortably? Well Marcelle would prefer if you weren’t. Because this is music for misfits to move to. The very opposite of business techno. A missive from a cult DJ with an enviable record collection and a fearless artist who couldn’t give a flying fuck about dance music norms. Saturate the market with pure energy – let’s do this!Seb Wheeler, Mixmag

Canadian born, Berlin based producer Aquarian makes his full length album debutThe Snake That Eats Itselfon Bedouin Records.
This record follows his collaborative EPs with Deapmash as 'AQXDM" and is his first solo release since his 2016 experimental mixtape for Quiet Time. Nearly five years in the making, 'The Snake That Eats Itself' is Aquarian's most complex, diverse and emotive work to date, plunging his trademark UK sound-system/techno hybrids into a self-contained, cinematic universe streaked with heavy influences from industrial, IDM, drone and dark pop music.

It's written in Brooklyn, New York, in a deeply transitional, yet seemingly endless period preceding his relocation to Berlin, the title of the album refers to the Ouroboros, a mythological serpent symbolizing the cycle of birth and death and infinity itself.
'The Snake That Eats Itself' pits Aquarian's most abrasive and brutal moments next to his most wistful and introspective.

Viscerally thick layers of tape saturation envelop the album as sludgy synths ooze against brittle atmospheres; breakbeats fragment, explode and disintegrate into swarms of delay and noise; scorched, metallic percussion - sampled from a year-long demolition and construction project next to his apartment - forge the rhythmic backbone of the album. These elements, however, seamlessly make way to startlingly crystalline and shimmering ambient passages, offering a sense of reprieve and balance.

Yes, we know the soul and funk world of the glory days, big labels, radio shows and bands amid a social context of segregation. A context that starts becoming less important when this music genre enters the mainstream in the late 70’s to eventually fade away at a fast pace in the 80’s until its complete disappearance in the 90’s and beyond. This time though, we dive a bit deeper into the hoods, because the social context of today ain’t no greatly different and it has its very own music, deeply rooted in the sounds of the early days, although more immediate and dense of beats and urban feel.

We are in Chicago, a place where every 2 hours someone is shot, and every 14 hours someone is murdered. It ain’t no Iraq or Afghanistan but one of the biggest and most sophisticated cities in the world. In the city’s west and south sides, which are considered the heart of Black America, gang rivalry is tearing its people apart. It has become so brutal that both police and perpetrators agree that this urban warfare is out of control. I started this release process after Yann sent me an heads up on this song and it took me most part of last year to build some mutual trust with Lay Lemons aka Biggz from North Lawndale, main area in the west side of the city and one of the most dangerous places in the world. When I first contacted him, Lay was having a hard time (and still does) as his daughter Raven was caught innocent in a gang shooting crossfire.

After the following investigation, the FBI (yes, big gangs are federal business) arrested and charged some members of The Four Corners Hustlers, yet Raven’s murder has no responsible and Lay suddenly lost his daughter overnight in the summer of 2017. He simply couldn’t concentrate on music, and the silly requests from a mad Italian with his crooked english were probably sounding to him like aliens speaking from outer space. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Lay’s cousin, sound engineer and recording studio owner living today in Detroit, so accept my gratitude Mr. Tony Amos.

Lay Lemons has never been involved with gangs nor was Raven, nowhere near that business. They are people of music, family and religion trying to survive in one of worlds toughest places. This song, its vibe, the beats, the voice... Are coming straight out of their hood, written around a fire bin on the side of the street and put together with 3 instruments. It has no chorus, it’s verses all the way through, it is a kind of prayer to the unknown in the hope of salvation through everyday strength.

Lay Lemons I salute you.

HRDvsion – Stroke implies different things. Different strokes for different folks. Not to spoil, but there is a Luke vs. Darth dynamic here. So let’s just keep it at that. Bring it on Death Star!

Joannes – Ow_kay, Joannes got that Wagwan thang going on. Rolling thunder under the hood, sprinkled with some breaks and reverbed. Yeah, it’s that hands in the air moment. Package includes a big phat breakdown.

Orson Wells – If War of the Worlds had a contemporaneous soundtrack, this would be on it. Electro-breaks, tunnel vision, planets colliding. Do not fear us, we come in peace.

Rydim (Part of ItaloJohnson Trio) – This got that nasty boompty. Think of Derrick Carter remixing Gemini remixing Derrick May. Can I have a bump, to straighten things out? Mit ein kleines bisschen acid?

ZONAL, the brainchild of Justin Broadrick (Godflesh/Jesu/JK Flesh) and Kevin Martin (The Bug/King Midas Sound) present their monumental Relapse Records debut, Wrecked. ZONAL continues where their previous collaboration Techno Animal left off, and combines a brutal ongoing obsession with beats, bass, dub, drone, noise and riff.

Under their new guise, the enigmatic duo push the parameters and atmospheres that have earned them critical acclaim further and deeper; ZONAL's sound has become ever more corrupted, corroded, slower and lower; with the theme of exploring inner/outer space acts as the gelling agent for this shockingly monolithic sound.

Anyone who witnessed their sonic destruction and lyrical detonation c/o MOOR MOTHER at both ROADBURN and UNSOUND festivals will not be disappointed by the slo-mo meltdown.

The drum and bass chart-topping artist, CURRENT VALUE, whose tunes are often a staple of Aphex Twin’s performances, returns to METHLAB RECORDINGS with his SENEX LP, which features twenty one of his most technical and innovative sonic works on the
ike-minded label.

A twin release with it's more upfront & riotous cousin PUER delivered via Souped Up Recordings, SENEX displays its half of the CURRENT VALUE sound with an expansive array of sonic sequences marked by their forward thinking sonic character and the singular timbres for which CURRENT VALUE is known.

Early in the album’s span come the glittering arpeggios of MEGACITY, which filter downwards above the bassline pursuit that plays out beneath their fluttering rays. Further in, DISMANTLE deconstructs a set of classic rhythms before reshaping them within the milieu of it's hazy pads under the pressure of it's mechanical low frequency generator.

An elysian piano melody wafts through the opening percussion of FRIENDLY TAKEOVER and therein masks the brutalist companion frequencies that await within the track’s second section.

ACCESS POINT surges within a stream of bitcrushed binary at the albums third quarter, and opens the way for the enigmatically warped sonics that course through the albums final sections and flow within the depths of it’s voidborne closing track, CRYSTAL BALL.

With SENEX, CURRENT VALUE delivers one half of his joint 11th and 12th albums as he explores his most experimental sonic leanings to both a further breadth and depth than ever before upon the METHLAB RECORDINGS label.

Fixon returns home with a brand new and powerful EP, after his release in collaboration with DJ Saint Pierre on our latest No Boundaries Series number Two in split EP with DJ Surgeles, Fixon it’s back with ‘Destroyed Landscape’ which contains four Original Cuts, three of them on Vinyl and a bonus track for the digital release, as usual quality music from the Mexican Producer. For this release we also counting with outstanding remixes from two great Producers who we give a warm welcome to the label, first remix from the Italian Distant Echoes who has brilliant releases on labels such as Dystopian and Non Series and for the second and last remix the British Producer BNJMN who is an active contributor of the legendary Tresor Records.

Redshape – Whoever is behind the masked face, he always has something else to say. This guy simply understands sound. And here we get the standard Redshape treatment. A no-nonsense chugger, a cold kinda-subby-but-not baseline, a nod to the break and away we go. We take no prisoners.

Eduardo – Reminiscent of the golden days of Jam and Spoon, gas-masks and fluorescent nights, trance seems to be back in the house. And what can we say but welcome it back into our hearts, minds and onto our floors. And for that we have the mighty Spaniard, Eduardo De La Calle, to show is how it’s done. Trance 2.0.

Undo – Undo trying not to piss off old people even more after Hell and Italo Brutalo? Well, good luck with that one, cause we’re pissed off. Pissed off cause we want to be young again, dancing with the Elephants, having fun. Fuck it, age is only a number, no? Alors on danse!

XDB – The sweet purr, the glacial strings, the subaquatic, the wink to the greats. A chiller on a hazy morning. A gentle awakening.

Black Vinyl

As Rune & Ruin’s initial release, the duo of Lynette Cerezo and Zanias present a new offering of brutalizing intimacy.

INSHROUDSS marks the first Bestial Mouths release entirely written and conceived by Cerezo, vocalist and frontwoman since the project’s roots in 2006. Through each of the EP’s five tracks, Cerezo’s commanding voice usurps the role of victim for that of destroyer—with scars where wings once beat the sky.

Drawing from the initial Bestial sound of emotionally gripping post-punk, Cerezo crafts deeply personal lyrics of self-stagnation and trauma, while longtime friend and collaborator Brant Showers (∆AIMON/SØLVE) provides a heart-pulverizing fury of industrialized electronics. Along with production by new collaborator Alex DeGroot (Zola Jesus), INNSHROUDSS remains infinitely body-moving on even the most discerning of darkwave dance floors.

Apzolut & MC Goatzak are two brothers with a pretty damn unique background. These viking brothers measure over 2 meters in height each and most women out there wish they had long hair as good as them. Meeting them for the first time we expected them to come from somewhere near the fjords of Norway, but this turned out to be seriously mistaken...

These metal heads grew up in the Caribbean island of Aruba and lived there till somewhere in their 20's before finally making the move to the Netherlands. With no real metal scene on that tropical island
and definitely no breakcore scene it's still a bit of a mystery to us what drove these guys to start producing and playing such extreme music - but we are happy as f*** that they did.

This brand new 5 track EP is one seriously brutal death/black metal breakcore rave mash up. Definitely not suitable for the top 40 radio listening weaklings out there. But if you're a wo(man) that has a hard spot for extreme out of the box music, then this one just might be something for you.

To keep the nostalgic memories alive and as sort of an ode to those dark times years ago - when for a lot of the youth trading and copying cassette tapes was the only way to even be able to find and enjoy underground music - we've decided to make this release physically available only on cassette tape and those are limited to just 75 copies!!

Hit Hz & Nunes share their vision of minimal music in this second Valuri release.

This EP is introduced with A side Hit Hz's "Doom", a 16min portait of music and emotions melt in a brutal-distinctive way.

B side is focused on french talent Nunes, introducing once again his vision of drums, grooves and human madness caught on wax.

'Esoteric, modal and deep jazz from the undergound, 1968-77'

Jazzman Records presents the sound of the unsung musicians who – in the midst of the Vietnam War and the fallout of the Civil Rights struggle – created some of the most beautiful Spiritual and meditative music of the era. Sometimes funky, sometimes mellow, but always trying to say something about the world in which we live.
Existing completely under the critical radar and largely ignored or unknown by music fans and critics alike, most of the musicians featured in this album won't be familiar to even the most seasoned aficionado. Their records, frequently turned down by distributors and record stores, saw little attention when first released - and have seen even less since. But in this era of musical apathy, where so many music junkies look to the past for their musical fix, we have re-discovered hidden, obscure and esoteric jazz musicians who looked to the four corners of the earth - and beyond - for inspiration. Here we evaluate Spiritual Jazz – music that is a snapshot of the era after Coltrane, a time which saw the evolution of an underground jazz that spoke about the reform of the soul, the reform of the spirit, and the reform of society: a music which was local and international at once, which was a personal journey and a political statement, and which was religious and secular in one non-contradictory breath.
The music on this album reflects the social and historical forces at work during the closedown of the '60s dream; music made by close-knit collectives and individual visionaries, by prisoners and eccentrics, by mystics and political radicals. It includes music by acknowledged masters, and moments of brilliance by unsung figures known to us from just one or two recordings. It is the jazz music of America in the age of civil rights, brutal repression, political assassination and war; a music that would guarantee the survival of the spiritual dimension in a society that was angry and traumatized, but nevertheless had seen hope of better days to come.

White Vinyl

This is "Altair", a collection of kaleidoscopic post-breakcore on Love Love Records from veteran french surrealist Ruby My Dear. Presented with artwork by TAPT on white vinyl.

The lights are out and a strange alien force surrounds the periphery of your hearing.. The sound of a haunting music box flickering in the darkness draws you closer but as you begin to approach everything explodes into dank crossbreed DnB rhythms that punch you in the gut and send you flying. As the bombardment of breaks momentarily subside you realise you've been beamed aboard the mothership and are now surrounded by unknown and indescribable visions.

You are given a brief moment to contemplate before your legs are swept from underneath you by a flurry of amens that would fry the minds of the hungriest of junglist's epicures. Journeying deeper into the heart of the beast you become aware of distant and immense rumbles but are stopped in your tracks by grinding brutal machinery rising up on all sides. As quickly as it appeared it starts to collapse and you are plunged into near darkness once again.

Pulses of light slowly begin to stab rhythmically from behind clouds and you feel yourself begin to move faster and faster through a void that is now streaked by a spectrum of colour. Floating debris starts re-arranging around you at light speed and every fiber of your being is simultaneously stimulated with needle-like accuracy. As the last string plucks play out the darkness falls away and the cover artwork comes back into focus. You immediately leave wherever you are and encourage someone else to experience this music.

KiNK presents Home! This aptly titled EP is the debut release on the newborn label Sofia. Founded by Strahil Velchev and Konstantin Petrov, Sofia is not only the physical location where this music was made, the city where they met and developed as artists, but also a paradox that is reflected in the art and music that comes from the place. Beautiful and ugly at the same time, clean and dirty, brutal as well as romantic, it’s a place where aesthetically seemingly incompatible styles come together in a twisted, yet unifying form. The photographs for the sleeves are made by influential local selector DJ Valentine, effortlessly capturing the local reality.

Those pieces of a paradox also are reflected in the music. The typical fine-grit of KiNK’s production skills meets his love for the elements of surprise and the classic building blocks and plaster of house and techno to create something that is very much his own, while breathing the spirit of early days and pioneering times. Hinged just before and after peak time, the tracks on this EP are cohesive, made to last and rounded off by the contemplativeness of yet another collaboration with Rachel Row called „The Beauty“. The first of many to come. And as always: Remember the future!

Klein's offbeat singular vision continues to defy classification. Her acclaimed, self-released records – Lagata, Only and CC – along with Tommy for Hyperdub and her theatre musical Care, have allowed glimpses into Klein's uniquely spirally perspective on vocal abstraction, disarming experimentalism and pop culture wonderment. Yet these chapters have also served as masks to conceal the artist's own personal crises of self-belief, misrepresentation and belonging.

An 18-month writing process led to her new album Lifetime. It's an unexpectedly literal body of work which Klein compares to "giving someone your diary." Lifetime embraces the inevitable cycles of existence, phasing through moments of brutality, vulnerability, estrangement and unexpected fortitude. Lifetime embraces the inevitable cycles of existence, phasing through moments of brutality, vulnerability, estrangement and unexpected fortitude. Every sound in Lifetime is intentional, every influence—from 'King of Gospel Music' composer James Cleveland, to early 18th century tonalities in the b side, the work of 'race film' pioneer Spencer Williams, the residue of the religious experience is deeply personal. The 12 songs of the album are pieced together like a puzzle; seamless transitions connect each of its compositions in a reverse chronology, while every chord from every song is echoed someplace else.

What's been hinted at in Klein's live performances is now realised in full for Lifetime. Less vocal work allows her to be even more expressive, and in eschewing a tendency towards brief, truncated sketches, each song serves as its own long conversational piece, committed to realities of a lived experience. The artist who once grappled with self-doubt has set about breaking the cycle of insecurity for others like her, while mindfully chipping away at the conventions of classical music.

Like its artwork, Lifetime addresses intersecting life cycles: the inner and outer selves, hypermodernity versus history, living nightmares and dream states, while seeking the light and darkness in both. Part 1 opens with unmistakable Klein flourishes on the title track. Gusty pads, anxious, frayed-edge static arcs, and craters of deep negative space, all of which melt down to the clean slate of "Claim It," which is a tribute to embracing one's own blessings. "Listen And See As They Take" and "Silent" form their own microcosm, as the sound of crackling kindling burns backwards into imposing structures of distorted strings and disembodied marching drums, before returning to heat and ash again. "For What Worth", in collaboration with sound artist and saxophonist Matana Roberts, explores the kinship between two artists whose shared exploration of lineage leads them both toward uncharacteristically sweet clarity.

Part 2 is further steeped in black expressive styles of the past. "Enough is enough" links the Lifetime narrative to the broader diasporic black experience, inhabiting every chamber of a harmonica with ghostly notes of the present and past, as fragmented gospel chords reflect spiritual bonds between self and the divine. "We Are Almost There" begins the journey with nothing but the looped structures of multitude of voices. The drums and dischord of "Never Will I Disobey" wordlessly create the conditions for "Honour," a near 10-minute composition where crossed boundaries and crossed wires are exposed in real time, and sharp expressions of hurtfulness, accountability and corrupted expectations are rendered beautiful in representational form, via sustained synth tones which hum, jab and flit in natural disharmony. The interlude "Camelot Is Coming" draws on the choir tradition to prelude the spoken word recounts the cycles of trauma and death that form "99." Lifetime closes with the dystopian swirl of "Protect My Blood" a composition which details an excruciating rift, before blooming into serenity as it draws to a close.

Klein's Lifetime is laid bare, from the end to the beginning, and cycled over again. From her place within her family, to their place within her, to viewing the fragility of culture through the lens of memory. It's a lifetime, an embodiment of young livelihood, and an end as much it is a beginning.

The Souljazz Orchestra return with a brand new studio album for our troubled times, 'Chaos Theories', released on Strut.
Always known for their uncompromising social and political messages, the Canadian collective hit harder than ever on 9 new tracks, outing the hypocrisy of modern day politics, police brutality and the everyday struggle of the working man. Led by chief songwriter and arranger Pierre Chrètien, the band continue to evolve their sound, drawing on a broad palette from their trademark Latin, Afro and Caribbean styles to some of the UK's political sounds of the early '80s, the era of The Clash, The Police, 2-Tone and frontline reggae.

Nasty Electro-Acid and Techno from the lost mind of Shinoby including an repetitive & paranoid, spiritual yet sexy psychedelic techno funk remix by Unit Moebius

Next up on COS_MOS is a label debut from Tom Dicicco. The UK techno artist has amassed a fine discography on the likes of Delsin, Off Minor and Dred Records, always with a rugged and club focussed current running through what he does.

The four cuts he offers here kick off with the hammering synth stabs and coarse claps of 'Varykino', a brutal twisted dance floor mover. 'Laser Life' then cuts loose, with squeaking machines and alien life-forms jumping about in a broken beat framework that brings off balance grooves to the party. Acidic bouncing bass lines jumping over the b-side on '99 Rising', where 'Quiet Theory' flips the script again, this time with percolating and trippy synth loops rising and falling with skeletal beats stuttering below. A well balanced party pack for every hour of the night.

This Los Angeles based record label brings us a selcection of artists from California! Feat tracks from Vatos Locos, War Machine, Fiend & Angel enemy. No holds barred brutality from the USA! Limited Edition of 150 copies ONLY!

A BRUTALIST BLOW. A DARK EXERCISE IN PROGRESSION. A PUZZLE THAT OUTLIVES THE EXECUTION OF HARMONY.

Vanta is a construction for the savage. It reaches the profane along with the cryptical. The EP includes 5 tracks in which Zomby redetermines his access to techno by developing a language that is archaic. A language that is his own.

limited edition of 500 copies

The only woman featured on Worldwide FM's Sydney broadcast, and having recently produced her first old out all-female showcase featuring musicians, visual artists, poets and DJs, 20-year-old Ella Haber has worked toward her debut for 15 years.

Shocked by a hushed crowd reaction at her first public performance, Ella's realisation her voice could halt and occupy an audience's thoughts bleeds into all aspects of her life. With early demos of her debut EP, CLAY, reaching the ears of Brisbane-raised, London-based musician Jordan Rakei, the recent Ninja Tune signee - impressed with her vibrant songwriting and compositions - lent his production chops to the project, arranging and recording live instrumentation at Old Paradise Audio in London, while Ella worked on vocal recordings in Sydney.

'Ella's timeless vocals and mature songwriting sensibility was the reason I wanted to work with her on this project. In a climate where artists often take shortcuts, Ella's determination and strong vision will make her stand out from the rest. It was a pleasure bringing her songwriting to life and I can't wait for the world to hear her music!' - Jordan Rakei

A multi-lingual multi-instrumentalist deftly weaving her songwriting prowess with trumpet, piano, spoken word, fresh lyricism and powerful jazz/soul performance, Ella's ease within music is in stark contrast to her feeling for every other established structure. Set to release her debut single, Old Friends, written when Haber was only 17, she reflects on the impact Amy Winehouse's debut album, Frank, had on her songwriting: 'I had been writing music since I was a kid, but listening to Frank just gave me permission to write about love and all its pains and confusions in this way of transparency and brutal honesty I never had before. Old Friends was actually the first track I wrote from the EP, and, the first song I ever really felt proud of'

In a genre, and society, where identity is increasingly scrutinised, Ella Haber resists, comfortable only in the confines of music composition. Challenging, with full colour love and intelligence, she's not letting anyone off lightly. Her debut EP, CLAY, is out April 26 via Soul Has No Tempo.

Lurking in the shadows of the underground since 2013, subtly shifting trends and creating new bass cultures with a firmly understated frame of mind, Itinerant Dubs resurface with three new dance experiments that cross the boundaries and join the dots with brutal simplicity of thought. No tricks, cheap thrills or passing tastes; this is pure UK heat coming straight from the machines to your needle. The opener, "Dub This", lashes out heavy 808 percussion amid a blur of sparse, jagged licks of acid, while "Human Emulation" uses electro science as its platform for dancehall annihilation, leaving "Three Four" to linger more placidly in a hazy, mid-air smoke that we've come to recognise as the apex Itinerant Dubs sound. Murderous and iconic. The shadows resurface.

Dritte Longplayer Der Britischen Synth-formation Pentagram Home Video. Inspiriert Von Den Düsteren Bars Und Clubs In William Friedkins "cruising" Film (mit Al Pacino), Vereinen Phv (zu Teil Brutale) Acid-jams, Spooky Synth-sounds Und Darke Goth-vibes Zu Einem Soundtrack-artigen Albtraum-nachttrip. 180g Vinyl.

Xao returns to Astral Black with his new eight-track LP, Eternal Care Unit. Created after relocating to Germany and distanced from the UK sounds and scenes that had influenced his previous work, ECU sees Xao further explore the ethereal futurism displayed on 2017's Alloys EP. In keeping with the title (Eternal Care Unit is a medical slang term for the morgue), the release soundtracks the transcendental shift from the physical to the spiritual realm.

Over the course of the record's thirty minute running time, Xao traverses through the hauntingly beautiful soundscapes of tracks like the opening 'Embryno' to the sonic brutalism of 'Corvid Tendencies' and 'Vent Jockey', interspersed with the driving off-kilter rhythms found on the likes of 'Bernet Franca' and 'Blades//Savants'.

The physical release comes with full colour sleeve artwork from fast rising designer Patrick Savile, whose has previously done work for the likes of Bokeh Versions, Warp, WGSN and more.

The now legendary collaboration between producer Terence Fixmer and vocalist Douglas McCarthy continues with a new 4 track E.P. of blistering electronics and intense performance. Long time fans will immediately recognise the strong tradition of EBM that Fixmer/McCarthy have held as their own for 15 years. 'Let It Begin' and 'The Crush' assault the listener with bruising bass lines, heavy insistent drums and mesmorising sound effects. With a Phase Fatale remix bringing a brooding and menacing darkness to any dance floor. The Force Mix of 'The Crush', harks back to the original power, energy and simplicity of how FM fans were first introduced to Terence and Douglas on their 2004 debut album 'Between The Devil'. The brutal love story continues!

Serenace, a mysterious duo based in Chicago and Berlin joins the Shaw Cuts squad with 'The Flying Guillotine' - a weapon shaped like a hat with a blade rim and chain attached.
The weapon serves to brutally quash any defiance against the ironfisted Emperor Yung and his regime. The enforcers are twelve specially trained fighters, The Flying Guillotine squadron. 'Sheltered In Absence', its pushing drums and energetic synth elements, chimes to the cruel deeds of the squadron.
The guard Ma Teng flees when he witnesses the brutality unleashed by the men and the lethal weapon. The raging emperor commands his fighters to capture him, but Ma has disappeared into thin air. - Vitrine', a diverse groove combining swinging percussions and warm melodies circles over head, helping Ma to stay undercover.
The slaughter continues as the squadron relentlessly search for Ma. Ma turns back and confronts the army. Equipped with his own deadly weapon, he joins forces with Kreggo and his - 2in1' remix version, wiping out the squadron one by one.
- Spun Coral' sweeps in, drowning out the sound of guillotines gliding through the air until the last member falls. Silence reigns over the battlefield. But the myth of the fatal weapon remains.

Koehler was hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky. This is his first offering for the ESP Institute. Side A recalls the hazy memory of an ear-worm chant heard over a decade ago on the streets of Thailand, a melody that since haunted the artist and has finally been exorcised by his own hand in the shape of 'Melencolia V'. Somewhere between an enchanted bashment and a sailor's watering hole, Koehler found a gargantuan kick drum that lands solely on the 4, slammed it together with a wide pulsing bassline and brutalized Dancehall snare, then laced it all up with his elusive synth melody. Add to this a generous sprinkle of finely-ground cosmic dust and we're all tripping the light fantastic. On the flip side, the artist buckles up for a rough and rapid-paced journey with 'Invidiosa' — a relentless snare scrapes, gouges and corrodes over 7 minutes, coupling with a simplistic bass loop and swiftly marauding through a demented assembly line, accumulating various nuts and bolts of instrumentation along the way — an undeniable dancefloor exciter for those hours when the club becomes unhinged, dancing becomes raving, and slightly more audacious folk can channel their inner truth. These two songs will have you question your existence.

Rian Treanor will release his anticipated debut album 'ATAXIA' on Planet Mu this March. The striking full-length follows singles for The Death Of Rave and Warp's Arcola imprint as well as live sets at Boilerroom x Genelec, Nyege Nyege festival, tours in India and various high profile EU shows.

The title 'ATAXIA' means 'the loss of full control of bodily movements' and relates to Rian's music which is 'intended to make people's bodies move in unpredictable ways.' He adds 'the angles in the letters, the phonetics seem to mirror the geometry and idiosyncratic patterns in the music.' Rian explains that components of the tracks were made by generating a series of irregular events and re-structuring them, or by destabilising a pattern that is constant.

When asked how the album compares with his previous releases, he says 'My earlier EPs share a similar interest in angular and asymmetrical rhythms that are designed for club sound systems,' adding 'they were more improvised, focusing on sequencing and pattern modulation, using standard drum sounds and synthesiser patches. ATAXIA is more focused and stricter, it's more co-ordinated in terms of the track selection and the rhythmic structures. I spent more time refining the synthesis and sound design, pushing it further than the previous releases.' He expresses an interest in exploring opposites in his music: 'fluidity and syncopation,' 'systematic and unpredictability,' 'reduction and extremity,' 'irregular symmetry,' 'easy listening and brutal'.
There's clear a conceptual backdrop, but the music itself is not overthought. There's an immediate joy to much of the album - check out ATAXIA_D3 with its wonderful cut-ups and modulations of the phrase 'people don't understand people.'

The roots of Rian's playful sound are directly linked to his love of the music he grew up with. Coming from Sheffield, you can hear elements of industrial, synth-pop, bleep, extreme computer music and speed garage at play. From Cabaret Voltaire to Warp and beyond; the sound of his city has been, and is, an integral part of his musical development and is still a direct influence.

Last year, he noted in an interview that "I'm not a computer programmer, I'm not an articulate person in that kind of way. I'm a visual artist." Now he elaborates 'I meant more that I'm a visual thinker.' Drawing and visual art have been a fundamental part of his life 'since I was a child. I got really into graffiti as a teenager and around the same time I got into mixing and these both developed together.' You can sense the mind of a visual artist at work in his music which is also reflected in the artwork he created for this project.

As well as his visual art, installations and multichannel sound works he is involved in numerous collaborations such as with composer Nakul Krishnamurthy exploring the common ground between Indian classical music and electronic music and his work with improv saxophonist Karl D'Silva, plus his time studying with Lupo at Dubplates and Mastering in Berlin (who taught him the 'importance of reduction') have all helped shape and push his sound into other unique and adventurous zones. Treanor is developing on different levels and in different forms all at the same time, re-imagining the intersection of club culture, experimental art and computer music, presenting an insightful and compelling musical world of fractured and interlocking components.

It is time for the fifth release of Discos Nutabe, the creator of the three tracks that make up "Niebla" is Lunate, a Bogota born and raised, who in this decade has been the emerging producers that the city has given moving in artistic circles where it reigns self-management.

Discos Nutabe returns to the House with Lunate, this is how he feels Bogotá, where he dedicates this complete EP to his city.

"A La Sombra de los Cerros" is the first track, composed with a jam of synthesizers and rhythm machines where Lunate evokes certain nuances of the past, as a tribute to his life as an artist in the great city of Colombia.

"Bogotá Adentro" is based on the narrative of the book "Toño Ciruelo" by Evelio Rosero, who describes the diverse reality of a city like Bogotá, city of brutal contrasts. Lunate describes this track as an ocean of sensations, a markedly atmospheric and serene track, a mental interlude for the dance floor.

"Luz de Domingo" marks acid and atmospheric textures where Lunate wants to reflect the calm of Sunday in the big city. A breath, a recharge, a change of reality, a truce agreed by the city and the calendar before the incessant evolution of the frantic days that follow.

I was thrilled when Joe Goddard asked if he could make an EP for the label and were even more thrilled when I heard it. The fact that he roped in the legendary Kool Keith to appear on one track just kept on bringing the thrills.

Here are some lovely words from Joe about this release - 'It's an honour to release some music for this label. I feel that due to the ravages of unrestrained and brutal capitalism, people across the world are finding life particularly difficult right now- both economically and emotionally. Capitalism is an insidious and elusive enemy and many people are currently turning to intolerance and hatred instead of recognising that at these times what we really should attempt to do is love and respect each other as much as possible. Therefore I support Keith's efforts wholeheartedly, and on a personal level I couldn't think of a nicer or more talented person to release an EP with.'

AF Trax's message is very simple. The far right ultimately wish for the destruction of our way of life and indeed the lives of many of the people we love. The message is love. The message is solidarity. The message is No Pasaran - They shall not pass. It is a call to stand together, it is a call to stand up, it is a call to ACT. Individually we may be powerless, but together we are strong.

If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!

Third LP of Cabaret Contemporain, French band (featuring Fabrizio Rat on keys) who use acoustic instruments (piano, guitar, bass, drums, contrabass) to produce a « hand-crafted » club music infused with techno. Inspired by Jeff Mills, Robert Hood or Drexciya, the five members already had a career on classical scene; their idea is not to replay classical techno tunes but to create a new path for the electronic music. 2 tracks featuring with the label boss, Arnaud Rebotini.

« Ballaro », which opens Cabaret Contemporain's third album, begins with light percussions, which seem to turn on themselves, while being conveyed by reverberations close to dub. After a few minutes of convolutions, the piece gets out of hand, transporting the listener into a rich form of pulsating trance, irrigated by a soaring melody and punctuated by persistent piano tones. « La selva »; more subdued, has the same energy, the track ending in an even more powerful way, a kind of paroxysm.

Finally, the strangest and most minimal « Cactus », features a singular groove, which evokes the most brutal house from Chicago, or the sometimes obsessive techno from Detroit. Just like other tracks such as « Transistor » or « TGV », fuelled by sweat and trance, Séquence Collective bears all the intensity of a techno cut for clubs' dancefloors. The only difference being that their music is not played with synths, drum machines or software, but with acoustic instruments. Dual curriculum The band is composed of five musicians and a sound engineer: Fabrizio Rat on piano, Giani Caserotto on guitar, Julien Loutelier on drums, Ronan Courty and Simon Drappier on double bass and of course Pierre Favrez on console. They are all in their thirties and met at the prestigious Paris Conservatoire in the late 2000s. However, all the musicians in the band have a double curriculum and navigate freely between the institutional realm and the underground or pop music scenes. Through classical or contemporary music, jazz and improvisation, rock and experimentation, they share a common passion for the original and futuristic techno of the 1990s, that of Jeff Mills, Robert Hood or Drexciya, which they have decided to reinvent and further in their own way. Not as a simple stylistic exercise practiced by virtuoso musicians, but rather as a new path for modern music, and for their generation. « The original idea » they say, « was to make club music by hand, like craftsmen. Like in the early days of jazz, our band managed to transform itself into a kind of dancing machine. Our music is therefore functional because it is danceable, but also mental and abstract, while offering several layers of listening. You can dance and play, have a purely physical and sensory connection to the music. But you can also immerse yourself in its listening, perceive refined harmonies or more complex rhythmic superpositions »

If the tones of Cabaret Contemporain are truly unique it is because each member of the band has developed a very personal approach through the use ''prepared'' instruments. The strings of their piano, guitar or double bass may recall strange machines with literally incredible sounds, obtained using objects such as chopsticks, clothes pegs, foil, hangers, a tiny pie mould or many other utensils from a DIY store. A collective energy

Cabaret Contemporain is first and foremost a live band that has been performing in venues and festivals since its inception in 2012 (Nuits Sonores, Siestes Electroniques, L'Aéronef, Le Trabendo, Philharmonie de Paris, Gaîté Lyrique, Rewire, Dancity, Barcelona Accio Musical...), both at traditional jazz and contemporary music venues, and more often at electro music hubs. When facing the audience, the band, which plays each of its sets in one go, without a break, shows an intense physical presence, which competes with the musical power of DJs who share the stage with them. Their performance, full of tension and repetition, which requires maximum concentration and a state close to trance from the musicians, is sometimes, according to them, « a mental journey and a mystic experience ». A dimension that brings to mind the historical techno culture and its dancers who, communicating on the dancefloor, were carried until the early hours of the morning by the power of the beat. An album inspired by the stage Since their beginnings, their compositions on record have drawn their energy directly from the practice of their concerts, whether referring to Terry Riley (2014) or Moondog (2015), an EP and an album dedicated to the repertoire of the two American artists, the original compositions of Cabaret Contemporain (2016) and Satellite EP (2017), as well as this new album. Séquence collective can be listened to as a condensed transcription of their inventions and their live experiments. The tracks, more than half of which were improvised during sessions held in the former Vogue studios near Paris, were recorded in live conditions, « like an old school rock band » they say. As usual, they invited a new musician to join them in the studio. After collaborating with Étienne Jaumet or Château-Flight, Arnaud Rebotini, César winner for best film music, added a welcome synth touch on two tracks (Pro- One, Prophet 600), which boosted the group's formidable collective energy. The album ends with « October Glide », again performed with Rebotini, a lyrical and lively track, built on a powerful and slow progression of timbres and percussions, which would ideally find its place at the core of a techno party « peak time »

Four tracks sure to get some antifreeze in your veins, prevent you from turning to a brick of ice during this brutal winter.

Philip Budny is a Berlin-based producer who's making his LPH debut here with Somnambulism, an easy, buoyant grip of tracks that'll lift your heart to the heavens as they keep your feet shuffling. Starry-eyed house.

Packaged in a custom graph paper sleeve.

After their highly acclaimed debut album »Decadent yet Depraved«, Berlin and LA-based producers Belief Defect invited a variety of artists to join their »Remixed« project. The following 12' EP is a first four-track release of this project. The original tracks of the album are only an approximate starting point for »Remixed«. In contrast to »Decadent yet Depraved«, largely conceived in song structures, this EP is about transferring the pieces back into abstract space, and each remixer does it in his very own way. Alessandro Cortini's one-take live recording is a lesson in classical ambient music. Telefon Tel Aviv's remix is timelessly modern and extremely delicate sound design. Rather opposite concepts are coming from Surachai's brutal pattern design and Kangding Ray's expressive and analogously saturated repetitions for the dance floor.

First albums are points of self-assessment for serious artists, and following his 'Shatterproof' full-length, MANHIGH label head Henning Baer returns with 'Rigger', a full EP of new production and refined directions. Dank, squelching electronics in the opener 'Corp' overlay a dark ambient atmosphere with evolving, pointillistic details, favorably recalling his early accomplishments on Sonic Groove. The title track combines subtlety with force, its slowly-tweaked acid line unspooling over grinding, corroded drums in relentless slow motion, with insistent percussion pushing ever onwards. Acidic brutality returns on 'Variant of A', which wallows in filter feedback over stomping two-beat kick patterns and lashing claps. Closer 'No Mind' is caked in accumulating layers of distortion centering on the off-beat kicks; the disease of decay spreads further to the hi-hats and threatens to engulf the circling sequences that anchor the track's midrange, with an eerily distant steam blast and half-time bleeps enforcing the track's militant, industrial character.

With Recent Appearances On Boiler Room And The Groove Magazine Podcast Plus Sets Across Asia And Europe, Jamaica Suk's Fearsome Techno Sounds Are Winning Fans Far And Wide. A Year On From Her Debut Release On Her Own Gradient Label Comes This Stunning Second Volume.
A1 Stinger Ray Kicks Off The Ep With Zingy Modular-style Synth Sounds Pulsing Over A Bubbling, Murky Bassline. Sheet Metal Snares Punctuate The Beat, With A Switch-up Halfway Through Into Gnarled, Distorted Synth Crunches Catching You Unaware. These Brutalised Rhythms Morph In And Out Of Hypnotic Arpeggiated Pulses To Make For A Hallucinatory Ride With Ample Dashes Of Psychedelia Throughout.
A2 Fallen Sets It Outs Stall Immediately, With Filtered Down Acidic Bass Playing Out A Jagged Groove. A Manic Counterpart Mimics Its Rhythm But Dizzyingly Delayed Off The Beat To Create A Rugged, Funk-fuelled Feel. Cymbal Rides Pitch Up And Down, Unidentified Snarls Of Fx Mutate Around The Edges, All The While The Sharp Hi-hats Keep The Metronomic Heartbeat Going.
B1 Whispers Ups The Intensity. Delicate, Arpeggiated Chime Sounds Set A Crystalline Mood Before Swathes Of Intense, Darkly-tinged Synths Swell In And Out Of Focus Atop The Throbbing Kick Drums. The Effect Is That Of A Factory Full Of Machines Growing A Mind Of Their Own, Malfunctioning In A Pleasing Harmonic Dissonance.
B2 Twilight Rain (vinyl Only) Completes The Set With Infectious Triple Kick Drum Patterns Underpinning Dramatic Drum Hits And Warped Atmospheric Shivers That Create A Spooky Feel As Droning Bass Tones Carve A Path Through Your Speakers.